Letter number 33: Injection of positivity

Dear Alexandra,

Friday was typically my trigger day, as I talked about before. Today is a Friday and I’ve actually had a really nice day. Matt, the water quality technician, popped around this morning to do a check for work, it was good to see him and just have a chat. After that I popped down to town for my first Covid vaccine, so got to see some people — the lady who administered it was particularly nice, and a skilled syringe stabber as I didn’t feel it, and continue to have no side-effects at all some 12 hours later!

After getting home I had a bit of a lazy time with Sonic, which was nice — then it was time to play football again. A good game, and after I stopped for a drink with M. and S. which was great, just a chance to talk nonsense. You briefly came up in conversation (because I still pinch your streaming service logins, so nothing heavy), it was fine. It didn’t elicit those pangs it might’ve done before.

I do appreciate you’ve not disabled my access to those services — I wonder what you think when the login screen pops up and my name is still there. It doesn’t really bother me seeing yours, in fairness, but I suppose in this instance it’s me beholden to your generosity so maybe that’s a factor. I drove home, no sense of dread at all.

Rather than head straight for a shower I released Sonic again and joined a group call on Facebook with our support group that was already underway, there were only three others there initially, the one lady I didn’t know dropped off shortly after my arriving leaving just N. and S. — they both know quite how low I’ve been, and N. knows a little more than most about our situation. She’s very direct so asked whether we’d been in contact much, I talked about how it had been a week or so since the conciliatory alpaca exchange we had after the more serious conversation.

It felt fine. I admitted of course I still care how you are, but am accepting that it’s not my place to try to worry too much any more. We quickly moved onto other random topics, it was a fun chat — Sonic providing much entertainment and mirth as usual. He’s been such a good boy through all this, he still has his naughty moments but he’s been a real comfort to me. I had my doubts whether I’d done the right thing or not in adopting him back in December, but I dread to think what kind of state I’d be in if I hadn’t after losing Frankie.

And I feel fine now too — I haven’t felt remotely tempted to allow Sherlock Bert to look at Twitter, Twitch, Instagram or anything like that. I’ve only had the fleetingest of fleeting thoughts about just clicking onto your Facebook feed to see if you’ve posted anything new. It sounds so silly written down like that, but it’s such a sign of progress for me — to move from being almost obsessive to accepting and beginning to move on, it gives me heart.

I just cooked a lovely HelloFresh meal — sticky asian pork with bok choi rice. Since it wasn’t particularly calorific and because I’ve been pretty active today, walking to and from my injection, then a game of football, I’ve pigged out and eaten both portions, haha! It was so nice! I’ve got some laundry on, so I’m keeping on top of all my house stuff, although cooking properly means the dishwasher is full to bursting with more stuff left over. I’m going to be lazy and just put them in once this cycle has finished!

Tomorrow Mum’s coming over early in the afternoon and we’re going to go off for a walk. I’ve got a 6 mile circuit of the old tram tunnels near Ticknall earmarked as a good spot, assuming of course I don’t succumb to vaccine side-effects, but I’m employing a solid level of positive thinking about this. My Dad had no side effects at all from either of his, so I’m going to draw inspiration from this and keep a positive mindset. Whether it works or not I guess we’ll see tomorrow!

There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to people’s reactions to their jabs — gender, age, whether they’ve had the illness, general state of health — I can think examples of people I know across all of these assorted spectrums who’ve either been floored by it or had no noticeable impact from it. You had your first jab and had a sore arm for a day or so, I don’t know how your second one went as that was after things all went wrong for us. Hopefully the second dose was kinder to you.

I got a promotional email about Hamilton today, announcing new dates starting in August. I’ve yet to hear when the tickets I have are being rescheduled to. I’m certainly still of a mind to request a refund though, I would love to see the show but it was something I really wanted to do with you. Maybe I’ll wait to see if it returns or maybe even goes on tour so I don’t have to go to London to see it. I really can’t be doing with London, getting the train in from yours would’ve made it so much easier than trying to get there straight from here.

All in all, I seem to have got Logical Bert back in control. I do have the odd lapse into feeling sorry for myself, aggrieved, angry, heartbroken etc — but I’ve been able to shut that thought process down and make room for thinking about something else. I think about the positive things in my life, the amazing people who’ve been there for me to help, and when I say help, they’ve not done a great deal beyond just being there, showing love and care.

It’s helped me realise that those times when you think “I can’t really help X or Y because I can’t fix what happened” are times when you don’t need to fix anything, just letting somebody know you care, that you can listen to them. That’s a big help. Even if all you can offer is your attention, presence and maybe a distraction or a kind word or deed — it all has an immeasurably positive impact.

I do think of myself as an empathetic person and I know I have been there for people through their own tough times in the past, and helped them — but I guess being on the receiving end of it helps to understand the real power of that. If I notice somebody I care for is displaying signs of struggling now I drop them a message just to check in. If more people did that rather than become insular and isolated then there’d be a lot less struggling in the world.

People hold back because they don’t know what to say, because they don’t think they can help — you see that as being shut out, I hope you come to see through that a little. Of course we didn’t do ourselves any favours in posting a very political amicable split message — however, that did do you a favour. If I’d snapped and ranted that Alexandra cheated on me and I’m devastated I’m sure I’d have been inundated with messages from both people who genuinely care and those wanting to harvest gossip.

You probably would’ve just got the latter people, which wouldn’t have been good at all. So I’m still very pleased that I was considerate enough to not bring people’s judgement into the equation, to give you every chance to maintain and draw on your real life friends and connections to get support. I hope you’ve managed to do that. I doubt that you have, in truth, but I know not to look now. I’ve tried to get people to reach out to you, I’ve talked with your Mum so she’s got an idea of what she’s dealing with.

Plus regardless of it being the kindest thing to do for you or not, it was the right thing to do. It would’ve been cheap and nasty to wash dirty laundry in public — like those horribly contrived (and probably acted) TikTok videos of people who’d discovered cheating in a relationship and fabricating some kind of surprise turned accusation. It’s just not a classy thing to do is it? I actually look back on that day when I felt like my whole world had been ripped apart and I’m really proud of how I reacted.

I could have made everything so much more difficult for you. I don’t know whether you’ve ever really appreciated that, which I used to resent, now I figure it doesn’t really make any difference. It was the right thing to do, and I’m glad that even when nearly at breaking point emotionally and mentally I was still able to chart that path pretty flawlessly. Gosh that was uncomfortable to type. But d’you know what? I’m a fucking nice guy, even when treated so dreadfully. I’m going to allow this feeling of being proud of myself.

I’ve been considering whether to share the link to these letters with my therapist, H. or not. I’ll probably discuss it with her — it does present a helpful documenting of my thought processes and state of mind since everything happened, it might help her to better gauge things than what I may or may not be able to recall over the course of a half an hour conversation (although our first session felt the right kind of length of time, despite me thinking half an hour didn’t seem much before it happened).

Which reminds me I need to tackle the CBT flows of information chart she sent to me at some point before our next session, I’ve already printed it out — it shouldn’t take too long to be honest, just a way of documenting how thoughts, behaviours, feelings and something else that escapes my memory right now interconnect, all underpinned by the situation. So really just a more succinct and structured way of summarising the waffling I’ve been doing on here, I guess!

Typically the weather forecast is cool and wet for the foreseeable future, so I’m holding off the grand cage cleaning event. I’ve at least attached the assorted bits to my hosepipe so I know I can connect it up to the jet washer with no problem when the time comes. I’m going to look at getting a smaller holiday cage for Sonic too in case I do decide to take him to Cornwall in the summer to see Aunty B. I must get the dates from her when she’s travelling whilst I think about it. I think Sonic would quite enjoy a road trip, and if I get him used to the idea of coming places with me then it frees me up to be a bit more adventurous in general without worrying about bird-sitters.

So yep, I’m in a much more positive frame of mind. I’m cautious enough to not be too over-optimistic as I’ve been in a similar headspace before and fallen back into bad thinking habits and the accompanying moods that they drive, but I’m appreciating the easing of the darkness and savouring those positive moments, thoughts, future plans. I’ve got an awful lot to be thankful for, and I’ve got a lot going for me — it’s too easy to lose sight of those things when the darkness descends, but I’m trying hard not to, and succeeding more often than not.

I guess if you’re worrying about me, then try not to. There’s not much point, to be frank, just as I’ve been trying to quell my worry for you. And if you haven’t been, then that’s absolutely fine — before I’d have probably resented that — but not so much now. We both need to move on with our lives and work out what is important to ourselves now there’s a big Bert and Alexandra shaped hole in our respective lives, at least in the roles that we’ve been playing for each other in the last few years.

I hope you’re doing okay, Bert